Linux App Finder - openoffice.orghttp://linuxappfinder.com/taxonomy/term/67/0
enWhat Spreadsheet do you use on your Linux System?http://linuxappfinder.com/blog/what_spreadsheet_do_you_use_on_your_linux_system
<p>Following my comparisons between <A href="/package/openoffice.org-calc">OpenOffice.org Calc</A>, <A href="http://linuxappfinder.com/package/kspread">KSpread</A>, and <A href="http://linuxappfinder.com/package/gnumeric">Gnumeric</A> I got to wondering what spreadsheets are the most popular for all you other GNU/Linux users. I started a poll that you can find <A href="/poll/what_spreadsheet_do_you_use_on_your_linux_system">here</A>. Promote your favorite and vote.</p>
<p>Options include OpenOffice.org Calc, KSpread, Gnumeric, Excel through Wine/Crossover/Virtual Machine, <A href="http://linuxappfinder.com/package/planmaker">PlanMaker</A>, <A href="http://linuxappfinder.com/package/flycalc">FlyCalc</A>, Google Spreadsheet, <A href="http://linuxappfinder.com/package/oleo">Oleo</A>, and <A href="http://linuxappfinder.com/package/sc">SC</A>. Of course you can also vote for Other and write-in your choice.<!--break--></p>
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http://linuxappfinder.com/blog/what_spreadsheet_do_you_use_on_your_linux_system#commentBlogsgnumerickspreadopenoffice.orgpollspreadsheetSat, 31 Mar 2007 22:16:29 -0700chadm599 at http://linuxappfinder.comGnumeric vs. OpenOffice.org Calchttp://linuxappfinder.com/blog/gnumeric_vs_openoffice_org_calc
<p>In my <A href="http://linuxappfinder.com/blog/kspread_vs_openoffice_org_calc">previous post</A> <A href="/package/openoffice.org-calc">OpenOffice.org Calc</A> prevailed against <A href="/package/kspread">KSpread</A>, but now it's faces a new challenger. Will <A href="/package/gnumeric">Gnumeric</A> have what it takes to win the crown? Gnumeric is a Free, open source spreadsheet from the GNOME project.<!--break--></p>
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<p>I tested with Gnumeric version 1.7.0 in Kubuntu Edgy and 1.7.8 in Kubuntu Feisty. For Calc I used version 2.0.4.</p>
<p><strong>Format Compatibility</strong></p>
<p>I started with the same .ods spreadsheet as before. Gnumeric did handle it better than KSpread, but a lot of formatting disappeared. All currency and percentage settings were dropped back to general numbers with no precision control. For percentages I now see six decimal places vs. the two that should be shown.</p>
<p>Justification, bold text, and cell underlines did import correctly. As did formulas.</p>
<p>Saving the file presented a new problem. .ods support is specifically listed as "unfinished" in the save dialog.</p>
<p>Gnumeric does better with Excel files. All of the .xls files I opened were correct. I was also able to save as .xls in Gnumeric and reopen the files in Calc without any loss of format or information. Hopefully the .ods support will be brought up to this level soon.</p>
<p>The one item I noticed with .xls files that the two programs handled differently had to do with macros. Calc asked me if I wanted to enable or disable them when the file loaded. Gnumeric gave no such option.</p>
<p><strong>General Use Impressions</strong></p>
<p>By default, Gnumeric has four rows of toolbars to Calc's three. The end result is only 32 rows visible on screen vs. 35 for Calc. In case you are keeping track, KSpread showed 38 rows. The story reverses for columns with Gnumeric displaying 21 and Calc 17. Despite the number difference though, Calc actually has more viewable space. The difference is due to Calc having a larger default column width. Overall Calc has more useable space than Gnumeric. KSpread's screen with is similar to Gnumeric.</p>
<p>There are a few complaints I had about KSpread that Gnumeric gets right. Calc has the same behavior as Gnumeric for each of these.</p>
<ul>
<li>Only one cell's distance is moved at a time when scrolling vertically</li>
<li>The filename is listed as the window title instead of the file's path</li>
<li>Double clicking the edge of a column resizes it to fit the width of the widest cell</li>
</ul>
<p>The Freeze feature in Gnumeric operates the same way as does Calc's. The only difference is where it is located. Calc places it on the Window menu while Gnumeric consolidates it to the View menu.</p>
<p>One of my complaints about Calc is that it doesn't allow you to right-click on text in the function bar to cut, copy, or paste it. Like KSpread, Gnumeric gets it right.</p>
<p>Another missing feature in Calc is the ability to Insert and Paste a row in a single command from the right-click menu. Unfortunately, Gnumeric is also missing this capability.</p>
<p><strong>Performance</strong></p>
<p>Like KSpread, Gnumeric loads faster than Calc, however, it actually seems slower during day-to-day use. There were noticable delays with doing simple tasks like deleting, pasting, and saving. KSpread also took too long when saving, but it didn't have any problems the rest of the time.</p>
<p><strong>Conclusion</strong></p>
<p>When you get down to it, Gnumeric just doesn't seem to offer much that's better than OpenOffice.org Calc. It loads slightly faster, but suffers in performance elsewhere. It doesn't have many of the deficiencies that KSpread had, but it doesn't improve on Calc in those areas either.</p>
<p>If the OpenOffice.org suite doesn't interest you, or you don't use Java, then Gnumeric can be a good solution. Like KSpread though, format compatibility is a problem, but only for .ods right now. Hopefully this area can be improved. It would be nice to be able to pick a spreadsheet based entirely upon features and performance rather than compatibility.</p>
<p>I'm glad I gave Gnumeric a try, but I will be sticking with Calc for my everyday use.</p>
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http://linuxappfinder.com/blog/gnumeric_vs_openoffice_org_calc#commentBlogsgnumerickspreadopenoffice.orgspreadsheetFri, 30 Mar 2007 06:53:14 -0700chadm597 at http://linuxappfinder.comKSpread vs. OpenOffice.org Calchttp://linuxappfinder.com/blog/kspread_vs_openoffice_org_calc
<p>I've been using <A href="/package/openoffice.org-calc">OpenOffice.org Calc</A> for a while now, but I recently decided to give <A href="/package/kspread">KSpread</A> a try after getting frustrated with Calc's slow load times. It rarely bothered me on my desktop system because I have 4GB of RAM and usually leave the program open, but my work laptop runs Windows XP, forcing me to run Kubuntu in a virtual machine. Unfortunately disk access is significantly slower and memory capacity is much smaller so the Calc startup time is painfully slow. KSpread is very fast, but are its other features good enough for me to stick with it?<!--break--></p>
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<p>For this testing I used Kubuntu Edgy running in VMware Player on my laptop and Debian Etch on my desktop.</p>
<p><strong>Format Compatibility</strong></p>
<p>I started out my investigation by taking an .ods spreadsheet that had been created in Calc and opened it in KSpread. It opened very quickly and on first glance appeared to have interpreted the data correctly. Then I noticed some strange results.</p>
<p>The first is that $ had disappeared for currency cells and were replaced with USD. Digging in a little further I discovered that the format had been read as American Samoa (US Dollar) instead of Dollar (United States). That seems a strange mistake to make.</p>
<p>Another problem is that justification settings didn't always import correctly. It was hit or miss. Same with other cell formating like bold or underlining. This was better, but not perfect, in version 1.6.1 that Debian Etch uses.</p>
<p>Taking my new KSpread ods spreadsheet and trying to open it back up in Calc results in a complete mess. The primary issue was that blank cells now showed zeros. Again version 1.6.1 was better, but the document formatting compatibility still has a long way to go.</p>
<p>This holds true to Excel's xls format as well. Calc could handle my test files properly while KSpread could not. In some cases KSpread even lost some formulas and just imported values. Clearly unacceptable.</p>
<p><strong>General Use Impressions</strong></p>
<p>My first small nit is what KSpread displays in the taskbar and title bar. Instead of listing the file name, the entire file path and extension is listed. My biggest issue with this behavior is that when I have multiple spreadsheets open simultaneously I can't tell which is which with a quick glance. Calc gets this right.</p>
<p>With its default settings, KSpread shows three more rows than Calc, but one less column. The former is due to less clutter in the toolbars and is very helpful, but the latter seems unnecessary. Why does the row number need such a wide area? It's mostly blank space that can't be resized.</p>
<p>For some reason vertical scrolling in KSpread while clicking the up and down arrows with my mouse actually scrolls the screen by 3.5 rows. I'm not sure why this is done either. Horizontal scrolling only moves one cell at a time. Vertical should be the same.</p>
<p>Two other annoyances are that clicking the edge of a column heading doesn't automatically resize it to best fit and any cell with a formula has a blue triangle in the bottom left corner. The former is a feature that I use frequently in other spreadsheet programs and the latter makes the spreadsheet very difficult to read. Financial spreadsheets end up looking like a sea of blue triangles.</p>
<p>At first I couldn't figure out how to freeze a row or column in KSpread, but that's because it gives the ability to create a Split View instead. It's a nice feature that can accomplish most of the same end goals, and in some cases it is even a more powerful tool. Calc has the same freeze behavior that Excel uses.</p>
<p>I've been mostly picking on KSpread so far, but Calc has a couple annoyances of its own. First off, it doesn't allow me to select text from the function bar and right click on it. I find myself wanting to do this very often when copying data from a spreadsheet to another program. KSpread gives me the exact behavior that I expect. This is such a big deal for me that I have one spreadsheet I use in KSpread for this reason alone.</p>
<p>Another missing feature in Calc is the ability to do a Paste or Paste with Insertion from the right click menu. This means I have to insert a row before selecting another to copy. One extra step may not sound like much, but I'm usually thinking of what I want to copy first and end up doing that before realising my mistake. KSpread makes this easy.</p>
<p><strong>Performance</strong></p>
<p>As I mentioned previously, KSpread is significantly faster on first load. Once the spreadsheet is loaded the performance is mostly equalized. KSpread still feels a little faster overall, but Calc is pretty quick as well. The lone speed deficiency for KSpread vs. Calc is when saving a file. For some reason it takes a few seconds before the file really starts to save. Hopefully the KSpread team can fix that in a future version.</p>
<p><strong>Conclusion</strong></p>
<p>The answer, as with many things, depends upon your needs. If speed is important and spreadsheets don't contain many formulas or formatting then KSpread is a good solution. Unfortunately, that doesn't leave much else.</p>
<p>Frustrated with Calc load times, I was really hoping KSpread would be my answer, but I can't recommend it right now. The lack of compatibility with formatting files when switching between different spreadsheet programs is a big deal. As it stands today, I could only use KSpread for files that I never intend to use in Calc or Excel.</p>
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http://linuxappfinder.com/blog/kspread_vs_openoffice_org_calc#commentBlogskofficekspreadopenoffice.orgspreadsheetSat, 10 Mar 2007 11:16:38 -0800chadm590 at http://linuxappfinder.comCreate Flash Content Using OpenOffice.org Impresshttp://linuxappfinder.com/blog/create_flash_content_using_ooo_impress
<p>For years Flash has been one of the limiters that prevented many people from completely switching to Linux. Fully featured development tools weren't available and many distros don't even ship with the ability to view Flash due to it being non-free. And even when a <a href="/package/flashplugin-nonfree">Flash plug-in</a> was added by the user there were still some sites that would not load because they required version 8 or higher. Adobe recently announced the Flash 9 for Linux beta to address the latter issue, but you might be surprised to know that a common application that may already be installed is capable of creating Flash presentations. I'm talking about <a href="/package/openoffice.org-impress">OpenOffice.org Impress</a>.<!--break--></p>
<p>Using Impress is by no means a perfect situation, but it can be very useful for simple projects. The first step is creating the presentation just like you would any other. Once you have the content completed, go to the File menu and choose Export. Change the File Format to Macromedia Flash (SWF), enter a file name, and click Export. That's it. Now you can freely distribute you shiny new .swf file and it will be viewable in any Flash enabled browser.</p>
<p>If your Flash needs are more sophisticated there are other options. <a href="/package/ktoon">KToon</a>, <a href="/package/uira">Uira</a>, <a href="/package/f4l">F4L</a>, and <a href="/package/openlaszlo">OpenLaszlo</a> all bring additional capabilities to the table. KToon and Uira are designed for vector animation. F4L (Flash for Linux) aims to become a complete Flash creation environment. And OpenLaszlo is designed for generating rich web content.</p>
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http://linuxappfinder.com/blog/create_flash_content_using_ooo_impress#commentBlogsflashimpressopenoffice.orgThu, 16 Nov 2006 05:32:58 -0800chadm538 at http://linuxappfinder.com